Testament

Dying and Still Living.

Walking along the trail by the lake I came across this twisted tree bending over the footpath. Stretching its upper limbs and foliage toward the nurturing warmth of the sun, this elderly oak tree is active and alive and, at the same time, beginning to die.

The central heartwood is no longer alive but, in a natural process of recycling, the minerals in it are being returned to the soil for reuse. The hollow in the center provides welcome refuge for small creatures and nesting places for birds and bats. Inside, the decaying wood mold is an ideal home for insects and other invertebrates until a woodpecker comes along to gobble them up for dinner.

“O living always—always dying! O the burials of me, past and present! O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever! O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not—I am content). O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at, where I cast them! To pass on (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind!"

Walt Whitman

The old oak is more than just a tree - it’s an entire ecosystem and it will go on for many years, living always and always dying - fulfilling its purpose.